There are some fairy tales in the “False bride” vein in which the prince or king actually notices a change in his bride’s behavior and starts to question it. However, it’s not until he starts seeing the form of his true wife wandering about that he realizes what’s actually going on.

The evil mother may be keeping him away with the excuse of “she needs to rest in the dark, you mustn’t visit her while she heals.” Back then, men were very much in the dark on how birthing and post-delivery went, and many cultures, including some European ones, sequestered new mothers for sometimes many weeks.

If I remember from the story, (and no spoilers) when he would go to see his “wife”, the evil stepmother-maid would say she was too weak from the childbirth to see him, that she just needed to rest. And that would go on. Considering the issues with childbirth when these stories were created, it’s very plausible that the wife would remain “in seclusion” while recovering from childbirth.

Perhaps he thought she was still recovering from the pregnancy? Women usually don’t pop straight up from the bed after that; and mood swings or odd habits would be common. We don’t know how long it’s been, but we do know the baby is still nursing, so it’s probably been under a year.

The idea I got from reading this was that the King didn’t know what to believe, only that something strange is going on. Look at the second sentence. “What’s going on?”. In the version I read, the line was “Ah heavens! What is this?”. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t that he necessarily believed the maid completely, but rather didn’t know what to make of what she told him, and so went to investigate to find out the truth.

He married a lady he found in the woods who’s brother is a deer. I think his implausibility meter is set quite high. Besides which, he’s probably noticed his wife not acting herself of late and is willing to entertain scenarios that explain why.

But … when he first found her … he heard the deer say “My little sister, let me in.” and he got her to open the door by knocking and saying “Dear little sister, let me in.” Also, pretty sure that, if there deer is living in the castle, there was a deer/brother discussion.

Wow–that was a rather bizarre retelling of the tale–while still keeping the main characters, if only because the brother was wandering around as a faun, and nobody seemed to find it unusual–except for why the faun could speak.

Well, stepmom’s a witch — she probably had more than one way to dispose of Jane’s body (gosh, I hated typing those last few words!). Make it invisible, shrink it down to doll-size and carry it out in her pocket, turn it into a towel rack, teleport it to that lovely garden and bury it in the dark of night…

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